Christmas Eve eve

We've had a great December- lots of familiar and new faces coming in to pick up a favorite bottle (or case!) Joe carried one of the last cases of Lazy Day Rose into the office as a reserve and we're down to the last 150 bottles in the tasting room. There are 1000 gallons in the tank from 2010 but that won't be in the bottle until April.

Laura and I went down to Costa Ventosa in Whaleyville on Monday to visit our fellow Eastern Shore wineries- the Four on the Shore! Folks from Bordeleau and Fenwick Wine Cellars were also there and we pulled raffle tickets from the Shore Wineries Holiday Trail. It's great to have other awesome wineries in the area so that visitors can see (and taste) different Maryland wines. Come pick up your passport today and get started: $1/passport, and visit all four wineries in the next 3 months to be entered in a drawing for a basket of wines from each winery!

 

Nellie and Janet have been out in the vineyard this week, pruning the vines. Nellie stayed out there last Thursday as the snow came down without any complaints. They say the toughest days are the ones when the wind is whipping through- like today.

Still no watermelon wine- although there have been lots of requests. Make sure you're on our newsletter mailing list and we'll send a blast out when it's in the bottle and ready to go. The other wines are sitting pretty and will be ready to go for our next bottling in April. 

Hope everyone enjoys the holidays with a nice bottle of wine (I’m drinking Vidal Blanc!) Merry Christmas!

'Twas the week before Christmas

Brrr! It is cold and windy out here! We've had quite a few visitors braving the wind to pick up wine for the holidays though, and we'll be open through December 23rd for holiday shopping. Join us on Facebook to receive weekly specials as we lead up to Christmas.

This is the time for holiday socials and appreciation luncheons. Teachers, bus drivers, business people, and members of the Westside Historical Society filled the event room this past week. I still can't get over how great a job Kelli did with the decorations!

A lot of requests are coming in about Alison's Wonderful Watermelon Wine. The good news is that the wine is finished, smells and tastes great, and is ready to bottle. The bad news is that we need federal approval of our label before we get anything printed. Everything has been submitted and we're hoping to hear back soon. I promise to send out an email blast when we know the availability date.

All the other wines are doing fine- we're in the waiting stage right now. Hopefully more concord juice arrives soon so that we can start the next batch of Joe's Cool Red. At the rate it's going now we might not make it to April!

Christmas Market

This past weekend's Christmas Market was wonderful! Many thanks to the artists, volunteers and visitors who came out and enjoyed the afternoon with us on Saturday. Barbara made delicious Glühwein (spiced wine, literally translated as "Glow wine" for how it affects your cheeks)! It tasted great in our souvenir mugs with cinnamon stirrers. Tammy made Spice Cake to go with the spiced wine which was moist and delicious. Joe baked his special chocolate chip cookies which disappeared quickly. We also shared a few other German Christmas traditional treats, Stollen and Lebküchen.

Awesome volunteer Amy got the wreath-making going with our collected grapevines. They turned out really nicely until we ran out of wet vines. Seems like if they haven't soaked in water for 24-48 hours ahead of time the vines are too brittle to bend. I'm planning to get out there today or tomorrow to gather some more so if you didn't get to make one on Saturday check back this weekend and we'll have some vines set up for wreath-making.

Fingers are crossed that we receive more juice for Joe's Cool Red this week so we can get started on our next batch! It's going fast- at this rate we might sell out by February! We also picked out the bottle design for our Watermelon Wine (pink!) and are working on the label so we can get it bottled as soon as possible. It's been filtered well now and smells yummy!

Lots of Christmas parties this week and the winery is perfectly decorated thanks to Kelli, Frannie, and Barbara. We've still got plenty of wine and great gift ideas (Wine & Chocolate! Gift Cards!) so stop by this week to do your shopping. And join us on Facebook to receive updates about our weekly deals for December!

Thanksgiving Week

Hanging Christmas lights in t-shirts!

I just read the blog from last Thanksgiving and wow! So much has changed in the past year. To start with, the weather this year allowed for the corn and soybean harvest to finish 3 weeks earlier. Also, the weather this fall has been absolutely fantastic- mild temperatures and colorful surroundings!

Lovely bottles of label-less Joe's Cool 

The big changes though, have been happening at the winery. With six months of having the tasting room up and running we've certainly learned a lot about the work involved, but it's also been a lot of fun! From big events like hosting Randy Lee Ashcraft and our Grape Stomping Harvest Festival to relaxing evenings like Sundaes at Sunset over the summer and the Happy Hour live music series this fall...We've been creating lots of good memories.

Chloe borrowed a hand labeler and got to work

Winemaking is still the same process, although there's a lot more wine this year! We also have a few new wines we're working on- like Alison's Wonderful Watermelon Wine and an aged Chambourcin reserve. Our 2nd bottling of Joe's Cool Red didn't go exactly the way we planned (labels and labeler didn't match up...) but with the help of our sister winery Costa Ventosa and her hand labeler, we were able to get Joe's back on the shelf by Thursday afternoon and make all the deliveries on Friday. THANK YOU!

Feel the holiday love.

I guess it hasn't changed too much actually- we're still making wine, having fun and building friendships with fellow Eastern Shore wineries. Happy Thanksgiving!

Waterfowl & Bottling JCR

Vineyard manager Richard Murphy & his wife Cara at the Waterfowl Festival

 

Nancy Kreek volunteered on Friday

In case you haven't heard, we've been officially sold out of our most popular wine- Joe's Cool Red- since Saturday. We took our last cases to the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, MD where is was quickly snatched up by visitors out enjoying the beautiful weather and festival atmosphere. There was a smattering of bottles available at the winery which were traded among customers after the last bottle was sold. Also popular at the festival was our Vidal Blanc, one of the few (or only?) dry white Vidal Blanc wines in the state. Check out the great article from the Star Democrat.

Fun with capsules!

Anyway, the drought of Joe's is brief as we are bottling more wine this Thursday. William the Winemaker foresaw the popularity of the wine and started making more over the summer, so we have 1000 gallons ready to go. It's definitely worth stopping by, maybe on an early lunch break, to see what's happening and pick up a bottle fresh off the assembly line. We'll hopefully get started at 8am and it will take 3-4 hours to bottle all the wine.


Also this week Chris English is playing at Friday's Happy Hour. A local blues guitarist who graced the Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth fundraiser last month, he promises to give a good show. Find out more at his webpage: http://www.brolow.com/.

The Hunter's Banquet has been canceled for this year, but we hope to offer a similar event next year. My sincere apologies to those of you who have made plans to attend and we hope we can interest you in other events at the winery. We are getting ready for our Christmas Market too, on December 4th. Anyone interested in setting up a table is welcome to contact Chloe (chloe@laytonschance.com) for more information.

Recent Events

Welcome back Laura and Joe! They've been away for the past week and we've missed them at the winery. While they were gone we had several fun events, from the Vienna Heritage Foundation fundraiser to our Ladies Night home shopping evening.

Tom & Jennifer

The VHF had a great turnout and several speakers came to illustrate the main cause of the afternoon- to raise money to support building a permanent home for a recently acquired Native American artifact collection. Tom Bradshaw, curator of the collection which is currently housed at Salisbury University, and Jennifer Notari (an SU graduate student) showed some pieces of pottery.

Lots of ladies!

 Ladies night was also a fun evening- it was chilly outside but the winery was cozy and warm. We served local cheese from Chesapeake Bay Farms and Chapel Creamery, and guests browsed beautiful displays of unique jewelery, cooking items, home decorating goods, make up and skin care products, and more. Jennifer's presentation went well and many ladies went home with door prizes donated by the vendors.

Alex Wersen of Rusted Axle & the Gingers performed at the winery on Friday night with Katie Gutoskey on vocals for happy hour. Everyone enjoyed the music and the relaxed atmosphere of the evening, and we appreciated having two volunteers join us for the night.

Can you see the beautiful sunset behind them?

What's coming up next? Another chance to join us for happy hour on November 19th, and we're busily planning holiday parties for December. If you haven't booked one yet for your business or group, give us a call (410-228-1205) soon! As advertised in Metropolitan Magazine, we're offering our event room free for daytime events (up to 75 people) during the month of December, and at a 25% discount for evening events.

Watermelon Wine Update

Mid 50s this week and the leaves are all brightly colored. The rush of harvest is over- William finished cutting soybeans last weekend and they finished planting wheat yesterday so the bulk of the fall farm activities are finished. It finished surprisingly early this year- normally everyone is busy until Thanksgiving! I suppose with farming you can never predict the weather and you work as hard as you can while you're able.

What it also means is that William can turn his full attention back to the wine! We tasted some samples of Alison's Wonderful Watermelon Wine last night. It was delicious!! It isn't as pink as we expected- the color disappeared during fermentation and now it is a light peachy color. Sweet and fruity, it's really going to be wonderful. A pure watermelon wine! For those who haven't heard the news, we won't be bottling this until 2011, as the process has taken longer than we expected. I promise to send a news flash out when it is ready!

But we are definitely bottling Joe's Cool Red this month. It's incredible but we have all but sold out of this regional favorite. Richard and I did a full count yesterday and there are less than 300 bottles in the whole winery. We're scheduled to bottle on November 18th, so if you're interested in seeing how this works come out and join us. We'll have a full assembly line going and we expect to fill 5000 bottles to replenish our stocks.

Tomorrow evening we have our Ladies Night Home Party (6-9pm at the winery, $5 admission for wine tasting and refreshments). Speed shop your favorite home vendors and enjoy a fantastic presentation by Jennifer about how to prepare for the holidays stress free. She claims that you can be ready by the first week of December so that you can actually relax and enjoy the holidays!

Tonight Jen and William present some of our wines at the Signature Chef's Banquet at the Hyatt for the March of Dimes Fundraiser. Say hello and consider a bid for the free event we are offering in the live auction!